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Dutch Court Punishes Theft of Virtual Property
tsa writes "Last week, the Dutch court subjected two kids of ages 15 and 14 to 160 hours of unpaid work or 80 days in jail, because they stole virtual property from a 13-year-old boy. The boy was kicked and beaten and threatened with a knife while forced to log into Runescape and giving his assets to the two perpetrators. This ruling is the first of its kind for the Netherlands. Ars Technica has some more background information." In Japan, meanwhile, a woman has been arrested for "illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data" after (virtually) killing her (virtual) husband.
It's funny and sad...how imaginary pixels can run people's lives to do horrible things in a physical world.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
Surely the first case would have revolved around the attack by the two boys, using the knife, threats and all that. I mean, that's a pretty straightforward criminal act right there without going further to look at the proceeds of crime (data).
I know, read the article, read the article. It's early, and I'm skimming headlines.
Last week, the Dutch court subjected two kids of ages 15 and 14 to 160 hours of unpaid work or 80 days in jail, because they stole virtual property from a 13-year-old boy. The boy was kicked and beaten and threatened with a knife while forced to log into Runescape and giving his assets to the two perpetrators
Uh, so it was about virtual property and not about, uh, anything else?
They kicked/beat/threatened him with a kife and the most important crime was IP-theft. wtf. Did I mention 'wtf' ?
Requiem for the American Dream
When she virtually killed her virtual husband was it homicide of a virtual nature or was it virtually natural?
In other words, did she use a virtual weapon or was a weapon used virtually to kill her virtually virtual husband?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
This ruling is the first of its kind for the Netherlands
I doubt that. I'm sure there were other cases of teenagers being convicted for stealing something in the Netherlands. It was something of value, otherwise they wouldn't have wanted it so badly, and the victim was deprived of it. Obviously, there is the issue of beating and threatening with a knife, but even if that wasn't the case it wouldn't be any less of a theft than if they stole some physical object. Can someone tell me what is the complicated issue that tfa is talking about? Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
To invite every avatar of Japanese origin to kiss my virtual ass, because what happened there is just silly.
That explains the botnets, then!
sent anyone to jail for Assault and battery?
I find that..odd.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Erm... while I'm not too horribly offended over the theft of virtual (game) property, the fact that it was a matter of Aggravated Assault is a totally different matter.
Wait, the knife and beating happened in the real world, right?
Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
How is this any different from stealing shares of stock, or other "paper money"?
Or virtual jail?
"Gimme loots or I PK u IRL lol"
160 hours of unpaid work
Surely it wouldn't have taken that long to actually get the items in-game?
The Japanese lady was actually charged for fraudulently accessing the guy's account, not for what she did after logging in.
Thank God those teens didn't kick the crap out of him, virtually, while in the game, they may have really been in trouble besides the "virtual" theft!?! WTF is up with the Dutch people...did they not think to try them for assault and battery in the REAL WORLD???
from T2ndFA:
The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification...
So even the real-life woman playing as the virtual woman is a man? My head is spinning.
If those punks had kicked, beaten and threatened that boy with a knife inside the virtual world of Runescape instead of of because of Runescape it would have been perfectly legal and they'd have gotten his stuff from his corpse and leveled up. Some punks have no common sense.
The second link is getting passed around as the Japanese woman "killing" her husband, which (rightly so) sounds ludicrous to most gamers. In reality, she logged into his account and deleted all of his characters and information, an act that is certainly worthy of some sort of punishment. Whether or not it needs to be brought to the attention of real world police is arguable, but quit making it sound like she's guilty of PvP.
Moral of the story? Beat, kick, and threaten people with knives. But don't you DARE force him to give you his items in runescape. ............as long as you are dutch
No, used the ID of the real guy to whom she was digitally married.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
The summary sounds decidedly stupid. I assume that sentencing was for the punching, kicking, and knife threatening as well. Alas, the stupidity carries over to the fine article itself. Hopefully the verdict itself was saner. That said, money is not so different from virtual property, so that aspect makes perfect sense.
This must have happened more than a year ago because you can't give away virtual property in Runescape. The system put in place prevents anyone from giving away any item valued at more than 3k. (For perspective 3k doesn't buy much of anything in RS, the valueable items are in the 100m+ range)
No, the murderess (the woman) logged into the victim's (man, i.e. "his") account.
I wonder if the virtual divorce came about because there wasn't enough "manipulating of electronic data." Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
What made you think you had the right to kill that murloc, buddy?
You're coming downtown with me...
So, this is truly an illegal access (the character profile is password protected).
On the other hand, she got the password from her virtual ex, so she got the password legally.
If the game's policy forbids password sharing (most do), then her ex is also guilty (and none of them are criminally guilty, just broke the policy of the game).
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
The case of the tokyo woman involved her killing his maple story character. Anyone who has played maple story for a few minutes knows this was an act of kindness, not criminal.
But anyway, what are the chances we see the vice versa: Real murders get you virtual jail time. After all, turnaround is fair play. Making murderers play Maple Story to punish them would be fitting.
I'll give you my avatar when you take it from my cold dead hands.
Wrong title.
"The boy was kicked and beaten and threatened with a knife while forced to ..."
Very little to do with "virtual property".
He was attacked and forced to give access to some electronic system.
The motive or worth of the system access is secondary.
Why is this news?
Is the following news:
"The man was kicked and beaten and threatened with a knife while forced to ... give access to his ATM account"?
From the description it sounds like they mugged him for virtual property, not stole it.
I've come to trust the Dutch as a serious and civilized people, so I suspect that it more the kicking, beating, and menacing with a knife that got these bozos punished; not the 'theft of imaginary pixels'.
Let's break this down to it's simplest form: Geek gets beat up for his virtual lunch money.
Why's everyone so steamed? That's been happening since the dawn of the abacus.
"The boy was kicked and beaten and threatened with a knife while forced to log into Runescape and giving his assets to the two perpetrators."
Rob-bin would be impressed (or, impressed upon)... forced to LOG in to Rune's CAPE, and giving his ass sets to the two perp e trators.
Perhaps Rune should have worn a chastity belt? And kept his cape closed...
Anyway, moral of the story: don't store your real assets in the nether... (and, don't brag about the value of the assets...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
From TFA: "On Sept. 6 last year"
And this in part establishes just why the new rules were instituted.
TFA merely wishes to publicize the precedent that this was tangible property stolen. Some (expletive not found) will try to twist this around to apply to copyright infringement cases now. I hope it played a little different in the Netherlands.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Why you dismally humourless wretch...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Thus spake Wikipedia -
Ooka Tadasuke (1677 - 1752) was a Japanese samurai in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate. During the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune, as a magistrate (machi bugyo) of Edo, his roles included chief of police, judge and jury, and Yamada Magistrate (Yamada-bugyo) prior to his tenure as South Magistrate (Minami Machi-bugyo) of Edo. With the title Echizen no Kami (Governor of Echizen or Lord of the Echizen), he is often known as Ooka Echizen. He was highly respected as an incorruptible judge. In addition, he established the first fire brigade made up of commoners, and the Koishikawa Yojosho (a city hospital). Later, he advanced to the position of jisha bugyo, and subsequently became daimyo of the Nishi-Ohira Domain.
One of the most famous stories is called "The Case of the Stolen Smell" where he heard the case of a paranoid innkeeper who accused a poor student of literally stealing the fumes of his cooking by eating when the innkeeper was cooking to flavour his dull food. Although his colleagues advised Ooka to throw the case out as ridiculous, he decided to hear the case. The judge resolved the matter by ordering the student to pass the money he had in one hand to his other and ruling that the price of the smell of food is the sound of money.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch.
so how did she murder his character by logging into his character? shouldn't it be forced-suicide instead of murder?
So: how about stealing bandwith? It's of the same reality as pixels, but mostly without bodily harm. Does this make leeching someones wireless as punishable? Does it make bandwith a 'good'? Yes, I'm from Holland, and I'm just curious.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
However, this isn't about the parent company taking away assets though, it's about a bunch of asshole kids beating and threatening another kid to take something away from him. Seems to me that - regardless of *why* they did it, they deserve a harsher punishment than they got.
In how many ways can you say "WHAT THE FUCK!?".
That is the most ridiculous, hilarious, and stupidest thing I've ever heard! RuneScape was full of idiots in the first place, but, as Emb3rz said, "Gimme loots or I PK u IRL lol", that's totally believable right now! This is the kind of things that will deter people from the Internet, eventually getting it shutdown, or just... fucking boring. *sigh*
Genuine WTF right there.
Let's see, two young adults beat up a little boy and held him up at knifepoint to steal from software, and they get community service. That's pathetic!
This is my sig.
That isn't theft, it's robbery. They battered him and forced him to perform an action. This is no different than forcing someone to operate an ATM.
Obviously is the physical assault, not the virtual theft. Stop lying for getting pageviews, thanks. There's enough real news.
ghostbar page.
This Article makes me very very angry. Not only because there are people in this world that are low enough to do such a thing, but the fact that this is also putting another bad face on the name of video games. There punishment has nothing to do with "stealing virtual property." It's entirely about threatening, kicking, beating, and pulling a knife on the victim.
"Trials defined a video game as an apparatus that displays games by manipulating the video display signal of the raster equipment: a television set, a monitor, etc. The previous computer games did not use a video display, so did not qualify as such in the courts."
Sorry folks. We've still got to wait until the middle of Hilary's second term in office to have 50 years of video games.
In Australia, the unemployed are sentenced to 180 hours or more of community service, just for being unemployed for longer than three months.
Is this the first time a Dutch court has punished teenagers fo violently attacking someone to steal something of value to them?
What did they do before, give them lollipops and medals of achievment?
What I don't get is what right the Japanese had to do ANYTHING to the girl. I mean,lets look at it logically for a sec,okay?
Dumbass A gives USERNAME AND PASSWORD for his character to girl B. Dumbass A then dumps girl B to get his mac on and DOESN'T BOTHER to change his account. Girl B gets pissed and uses the password and username he GAVE HER and that he DIDN'T CHANGE and gives him the online equivalent to a kick in the nuts by "killing" his character. And this is a problem because? Had he never heard about a "woman scorned"?
So is there ANYONE here who wouldn't have seen this even coming a mile away? And what kind of moron gives his passwords to his little online"wife" and then dumps her and doesn't change the password first? If the courts should do anything in that case it should be forcing Dumbass A to wear "I'm an idiot for giving out my username and password" on a t-shirt for a month of even bringing this stupidity to the cops. What saddens me is everytime I think I have seen the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to total stupidity along comes a brain trust like this that proves that if you keep digging you can always go under the barrel! What a dumbass!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Don't worry too much about the harshness of 4 weeks of unpaid labour. In the Netherlands this mainly involves leaning on a rake, smoking herbs with the rest of the municipal gardeners.
Screw the virtual property- I'd think assault, battery, and using a deadly weapon should be addressed first.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Hello Zippy :)
The only thing sillier is the article itself.
Try googling it and see what you come up with. The results are even sadder.
There are no sources in any .jp domain, and every other reference appears to be a rewrite of the AP news release. Compare http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5002721.ece for example.
It was NOT reported in the Japan Times and I've usually found that to be a decent news source. And yes, I tried searching there first.
Sigh. True journalism is dead.
"The boy was kicked and beaten and threatened with a knife."
Gee... maybe some of that is illegal? Regardless of what they stole?
He was beaten, kicked and threatened with a knife! That is what those guys were convicted for.
If just the virtual items had been stolen, possibly nothing would have come of it. But there was beating anf kicking and threatening with a knife. I would say that should be punishable, regardless of intent.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Both of these are only 'news' in that they involve a couple games. They mostly involve some real-world component (beating, illegal access). For something more in line with what would be expected from the headline, check out the "rape" case on LambaMOO, from 15 -years- ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_in_Cyberspace
I've been very annoyed with the Dutch newspaper reports on this issue. All the headlines I've seen were talking about 'Virtual theft punished for the first time', which is, of course, nonsense. I'm glad /. did better.
Theft of 'virtual property' is nothing special. Lot's of things, like my bank balance, are only represented by bits and bytes these days. If you steal it, you're still a real life thief.
The theft, intimidation and violence were very real and very punishable. Any other decision would've been an outrage.
Killing someone in Quake (or whatever FPS is fashionable these days) is obviously virtual murder and not punishable outside the game.
X.
I imagine the court didn't look kindly on the mugging. What was stolen was largely irrelevant.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Man, that horde pally who ganked me last night while I was harmlessly farming for engineering schematics is going to pay now. I'm going to get Weinstein, Feinstein, and Bernstein on the case. They virtually killed me! Then he got his two friends to camp me while he "assaulted" my avatar (re: teabagging me).
I can see the High Court of Azeroth awarding me full custody of his Netherwing Mount, and 5,000 gold for my pain and suffering!
And they said zombies weren't real!
Slashdot editors: You fucking idiots! Are you even watching?
What was punished here was the physical assault used to coerce the kid to give up his login info, not the virtual theft. Morons.
never to play games where either money or domination is involved as a part of playing the game.
You get into gamblers mentality and things get very, very messy. And it's no longer a game.
I did the same and did not find any link at first. However, the Slashdot Japan has since reported the story and has links to several Japanese sources.
http://slashdot.jp/it/08/10/24/0413257.shtml
I have a level 117 account in runescape and have been playing for about 5-6 years...
uneven trade has been nearly impossible in the game for over half a year. Unless they were taking items of relatively little worth, there is no way this story is true (the victim is probably lying). Furthermore, there is no way the court could have known that the items were the victim's property originally. So, with no proof other than a fight - the court's ruling is idiotic and the charge should have been assault... not theft. Taking items that are allowed to be unfairly traded (up to 30k in value depending) are worth like 10 cents.
"if one person has it another can't have it" .the game doesn't allow it).
Every player in the game can acquire anything another player has in runescape. There is no item in the game that there is only one of. There are increasingly rare items that sell for well over 100 million gold (worth about 300$ back when real world trading was possible) but these cannot be traded unfairly (you can't just give it away..